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It’s OK to Talk about Quakerism

Sometimes we are reluctant to talk about our Quakerism with friends, neighbors, and co-workers. In my (so far unpublished) research on expressing Quaker spirituality in the workplace, I interviewed one person who said that when a co-worker found out he was a Quaker, he was stunned. “I worked next to you for five years and had no idea you were a Quaker.”

On Normality (July 2022)

Three Numbers

Three numbers to remember: 2, 16 and 20,000. What’s the story behind three such different numbers, and how are they all related?

On Normality (July 2022)

A Sacred Space

Dear Editor: I write regarding the article “Place of Privilege” by Ann Clendenin in the May/June 2022 issue of Western Friend.

On Normality (July 2022)

William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” (review)

I’d be interested in this book even if I weren’t a Quaker.

On Normality (July 2022)

On Cooperation

We are bags full of muscle and bone. And although we can see the leather of the bags, we can only guess at the contents, the memories and desires that propel any life, including our own.

On Cooperation (September 2022)

Botany on an Endangered Planet

I have spent my whole life learning about the natural world. I am a professional botanist whose career was focused for fifty-plus years on trying to use science to understand and “save” specific unusual components of our earth’s ecosystems. I have learned a lot about climate change over the many years since Al Gore published Earth in the Balance in 1992, which my life partner, Dr. Charles Avery, used as a textbook in his Northern Arizona University conservation classes.  However, in recent decades, I have become increasingly sad, frustrated, angry, and sometimes depressed that humans in general, and climate-change-deniers in particular, are threatening the health of our whole earth.

On Science (November 2022)

Revolutionary Nonviolence

Dear Editor: I was delighted to see an article about Lawrence and Viola Scott and their Quaker activities in the “Pages for All Ages” section of the July/August 2022 issue of Western Friend.

On Science (November 2022)

“Bulletin” and “Lincoln”

My world both shrinks and grows. One day, a glorious god’s-ray aimed directly at my heart;  then a declining, dying Dodo.

On Conflict (January 2023)